In his 2008 book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell culled a memorable and marketable tip from a 1993 study of violinists at a music academy in Berlin. The study’s authors, he said, found that the most talented and accomplished 20-year-old violinists at the school had practiced an average of 10,000…

Bill Simmons this week mused on the fate of Dwight Howard, who appears to be the NBA's equivalent of plutonium: a potential world-beater but perilously radioactive. To characterize the gap between Perceived Dwight Howard and Actual Dwight Howard, the founder of Grantland and ESPN spittling-head did something very Bill…

This week's New Yorker brings a new retelling of the Jerry Sandusky story, this one from pop-think guru Malcolm Gladwell. In his usual this-thing-explains-that-thing mode, Gladwell cites case histories of two other prominent pedophiles, using those stories to explain how Penn State failed to act on what appears, in…

By now, you've probably made it through all three parts of the Simmons-Gladwell ESPN.com tandem bike ride. Let's thin-slice! Here's my reaction: Could Malcolm Gladwell please stick to being wrong about dog trainers and Enron?

I actually did know who Kevin Garnett was before today. In fact, we talked one time. It was a conference call though, lacking in intimacy. Those were the days before you could Wikipedia helpful icebreakers.

Either New Yorker and "The Tipping Point" author Malcolm Gladwell is just angry because Barry Bonds is the only human who might actually have a bigger head than he does, or he might actually be onto something. Gladwell, who says "Game Of Shadows" is "a death sentence for Bonds," suggests hiring a team of forensic…

After what had been a considerable hiatus, our boy Bill Simmons is cranking out his Curious Guy segments like crazy these days. We had David Stern just a week ago, and now, punching back in his weight class, he banters with "The Tipping Point" author Malcolm Gladwell for, let's see, 5,000 words ... and it's only…